With offices in both Jersey City and Chicago, the National Stock Exchange (NSX) is regulated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Additionally, the NSX tracks all trading conducted on the exchange by means of systemic controls and automated daily surveillance. NSX views compliance with its own rules and federal securities laws as being essential to investor confidence and protecting the integrity of the marketplace, member companies, and individual investors.
The origins of the NSX go back to 1885, when a group of businessmen in Cincinnati identified an opportunity to profit from rapidly developing businesses in the area. The Cincinnati Stock Exchange was established as these astute businessmen auctioned shares of local companies. These were prosperous times, and the exchange grew as the U.S. economy flourished, managing to stay afloat through the great depression and war years that were the downfall of other U.S. stock exchanges. In 1995, the Cincinnati Stock Exchange moved to Chicago, and in November 2003 changed its name to the National Stock Exchange.
Milestones in the development of the National Stock Exchange include the transition in 1980 from a physical trading floor to an-all electronic fully automated stock exchange, going on to introduce its Intermarket Trading System (ITS) enabling its members to communicate electronically with other markets and thereby gain the best possible execution prices to benefit their public customers. In 1993, NSX put into place an electronic order audit trail to track transactions for regulatory purposes, and in 1998 it created the innovative market data revenue-sharing program. The most recent milestone of the NSX has been the introduction in 2006 of its new business plan and the subsequent launch of NSX BLADE, offering cutting edge technology, coupled with the lowest cost structure in the industry, designed to meet the fast-paced needs of trading in the 21st century.
